Nicholas Negroponte offers more details about his One Laptop Per Child project …

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The One Laptop Per Child project hasn't been receiving much love lately from either Intel or Microsoft, but that's not going to stop Nicholas Negroponte, the man who chairs the project. At the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo yesterday, Negroponte told the crowd that "when you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right."

That doesn't mean the criticism doesn't bother him; it does. Negroponte says that he can't understand why Microsoft, especially, continues to bash the product when they are involved in developing a version of Windows CE that will run on the device.

"We are also talking to Microsoft constantly. We are going to ship them development boards. They are going to make a Windows CE version (that supports the hardware). So jeez--why criticize me in public?"

Negroponte used his speech to give more details about the US$100 laptop that his group is developing. The device's most unique feature, a hand crank that could recharge the batteries, has been dropped. Apparently, tests showed that the crank generated too much twisting force on the small plastic prototypes; repeated use by eight-year-old boys would be more than the units could handle. This isn't necessarily the end of the human-powered generator, however. As the OLPC's wiki says, "After extensive analysis, building a generator into this unit now appears not to be advisable on ergonomic, mechanical and electrical robustness grounds. External generators open up many more options for charging and also more battery possibilities." The external generator in question appears now to be a foot pedal.

"I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," [Negroponte] said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old [b] to pedal for you."

Negroponte also addressed the display, which critics have countered cannot be produced cheaply enough to keep the device affordable. Negroponte disagrees, saying that the project's economies of scale will allow it to secure good deals on the seven inch screens, even if it means convincing a manufacturer to change their production plans. He recounted one such discussion that he had with the display manufacturer who offered to do just this.

"I said, 'We'd like to work with you on the display. We need a small display. It doesn't have perfect color uniformity, it can have pixel or two missing, it doesn't have to be that bright," Negroponte recounted. "The manufacturer said, 'Our strategic plan is to make big displays with perfect color uniformity, zero pixel defects and to make it very bright for the living room.'"

"I said, 'That's too bad, because I need 100 million a year.' They said, 'Well, maybe we can change our strategic plan.' That's the reason you need scale," Negroponte said.

He claims that the project is on track to produce laptops in 2007 at a cost of US$135, a number that Negroponte wants to see fall to US$50 by 2010. The project has already raised more than US$29 million in funding, and hopes to have millions of the devices in the hands of children by next year. Initial discussions have already been held with the governments of several countries, including China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand, and the project is still exploring the possibility of offering a commercial version of the device.